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Louie da fly

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  1. Louie da fly
    Though the lateen is now known to have been developed earlier than previously thought - as evidenced by this tombstone, dated to the second century AD this is the only evidence for such prior to the 5th century; all other contemporary representations I'm aware of show square sails. So a square sail is far more likely for the Sea of Galilee ship, which is dated to the first century AD. Steven
  2. Louie da fly
    Good thought, Pat, but the thread is pretty stiff and isn't all that hard to thread through. Just fiddly and time-consuming. Steven
  3. Louie da fly
    Thanks everybody for the likes and comments. The weave of the cloth isn't as coarse as the camera makes it seem, and apart from keeping my hand still (and taking frequent breaks so I didn't start making careless mistakes) it was just a matter of following the lines I'd traced on the fabric through the template. I used a very fine watercolour brush and watered-down acrylic paint. After all the paint was properly dry I went over the sails with a soft eraser to get rid of as much of the remaining pencil marks as I could. I'm now in the process of adding bolt-ropes (photos later) - by gluing cotton thread to the edges of the sails with PVA (white) glue. I did a test piece first and it worked well. Once the glue is properly dry, I can cut around the outside of the bolt-ropes - doing it this way means the sails don't warp and lose their shape (particularly the lateens, which are cut diagonally across the weave) after cutting. I developed this technique on my previous build, the lateen-rigged dromon. Steven
  4. Louie da fly
    It's been a while since I posted any progress. It's taken some time to get things done. Well, here are the sails all painted . . . A bit of variation in the colour - a result of having to mix the paint up in separate batches, as it dries pretty fast. But not too bad, overall. I'm pretty happy with it. At this scale I wasn't prepared to do separate cloths for the sails or do stitching to indicate it - instead I did what I did back in the day - mark the joins with a 2H pencil. Looks pretty good. I had forgotten to add the wooldings to the main and foremasts. Not too much of a problem with the main: But as the foremast was already in place (when I was removing everything else to fix the ship up, I'd been unable to remove it without causing damage) I should have put the wooldings on before I added the shrouds. As it is I'll have to thread the cord around the mast past all the shrouds and the tyes for the foresail. It sucks a bit, but it just takes a bit more work. First one under way - a few more turns still needed. Steven
  5. Louie da fly
    Sounds like a great project. Looking forward to seeing your progress on this one. Steven
  6. Louie da fly
    Oh, yes - those old favourites, like "Mama hat mir gesagt, ich soll nicht kommen" Steven
  7. Louie da fly
    I think you're right, mate. Just have another go at it. My own workshop is littered with first attempts - it's part of the learning process. Here's the tripod and cauldron for you, And here are the dimensions and some construction details: http://warehamforgeblog.blogspot.com/2020/04/oseberg-tripod-and-cauldron-refining.html Steven
  8. Louie da fly
    Brilliant work, Pat. That's just beautiful! Steven
  9. Louie da fly
    Looking good so far. I look forward to seeing the progress on this. Steven
  10. Louie da fly
    It might b the fault of the wood you're using. I've never used basswood, but on looking it up it's described as being very good for carving, which presumably means it would be ok for making this chest. Maybe just try it again; but you could also try it in a different timber. Steven
  11. Louie da fly
    I'm glad this discussion has been of help to you, rupertmac. I was going to say the planking should curve upward at the ends, but as you're doing close-ups this really isn't an issue. The sail and the planking look good in the trailer. Can I say, however, that the woman with a naked sword hanging from her belt would be an accident waiting to happen . . . apart from cutting her belt, she'd be likely to hurt herself on the blade . . . Still, that's just me (having been a mediaeval re-enactor for many years) - nobody else is likely to notice. Unfortunately we haven't heard from deperdussin1910 since November 2018 - it would be really nice to see if he continued with his project (hint, hint). Steven
  12. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Slowhand! Steven
  13. Louie da fly
    I'm not familiar with beech (we don't have many beech trees in Oz). I use pear wood and have good results. But the best is supposed to be boxwood - I can't say from personal experience because I've never used it. Having said all that, you're doing very well with your lion, so I don't think there's a problem anyway. Steven
  14. Louie da fly
    Hi Pat. It does look a bit coin-toss. Against the steel version is the fact that it follows the form of the bell so closely, which is not seen on the lithograph. The wood version would be harder to make (especially as you have all those amazing metal-working equipment and skills!), but it could be done. First question - why do you have three layers at all? Is it to follow standard belfry construction? Certainly you can't see them in the lithograph. However, if you do, there are two ways to go. The first is to carve your three layers from separate pieces of fine-grained timber (box for preference) and glue them together. That would take a fair bit of care to get everything to fit accurately, but it could be done. Rather in the manner of post #1404 at https://modelshipworld.com/topic/10344-10th-11th-century-byzantine-dromon-by-louie-da-fly-150-finished/page/47/ - (only more complicated) Alternatively, treat the horizontal projections as a separate structure - you'll never get a change of direction that tight by bending. Glue the three layers of the arch together and while the glue is still wet put them in a two-piece press of the correct diameter (you'd have to make that, I suppose) to get the curve. The layers will slide over each other longitudinally, so make them a little too long and trim to length once the glue is dry. Make the projections separately and glue them in place. This is a very fiddly method, and has many opportunities to go wrong - I'd be going for carved pieces, myself. If all else fails, send me the dimensions and I'll be quite happy to carve the arch. (I have to say I'm rather tempted by the idea of having a little bit of my stuff on this beautiful model). Nup, the bow-on aspect would still show vertical legs as vertical, or at the very least as parallel. If this is an accurate rendition, then the legs would be splayed, even in timber. It could be an advantage in structural strength to do it that way, actually. Though I think you're right in spotting a "step" in the legs toward the bottom (before the gunwale obscures them). Steven
  15. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Patrick.
  16. Louie da fly
    Oh heck! I've already got it! But thanks so much for the offer. I've read it at least once, but I'll have to go over it in more detail. I actually used the Serçe Limani block in my dromon build (!) and yes, for the halyard . . . (see posts #1170 and #1172 at https://modelshipworld.com/topic/10344-10th-11th-century-byzantine-dromon-by-louie-da-fly-150-finished/page/39/) Steven
  17. Louie da fly
    Pat, do you have a photo of the original belfry? I've worked with making fake curves in wood and might be able to come up with some ideas if I could see what's being aimed at. Steven
  18. Louie da fly
    Thanks everybody for the likes and comments. It's interesting that the original painting shows the "cloth of gold" on the back of the sail but not the front. I think that as the artist shows the ship from aft this is a device to show off the pattern - and it is followed in the reconstruction painting. I believe it would actually have been on the front where it would have been more easily seen, and as shown in many other pictures of ships of this period. So I've pretty much decided that I'll have the pattern on the front (lets not even think of painting it both sides). Steven
  19. Louie da fly
    That looks fine, Waldemar. Except for the calcet (my ship is English, after all) I used a similar method on my Great Harry - see post #319 at but I wasn't really certain it was appropriate for my period, as at least one of the books related to ships from about 1620 onwards. Does your book specifically mention the ramshead block/knight assembly for the late 15th century? Steven
  20. Louie da fly
    Working on the fore shrouds. I'd already (way back when I was 17) glued the ratlines to the starboard shrouds, thinking it's be easy to add the deadeyes later (how wrong I was!). Since I took this photo I have tightened the lanyards, glued them in place and cut the free ends off (also very fiddly). And the port shrouds were new. Unfortunately my clever way of setting up the spacing of the deadeyes just didn't work. The shrouds ended up too long, and I ended up having to strip them off, cut off the top end and glue them back on. A lot of mucking around. I'm hoping that with experience I'll get better on later ones. And I did some test painting for the "cloth of gold" sails. Here's the original painting from 1545, and the reconstruction painting from Björn Landström's book The Ship, which I used as my model. I traced the repeating pattern and made a template for it, but wasn't satisfied with it so I made another by photocopying the pattern and sticking it to thin card from a manilla folder. For the first test run I used gold acrylic - looked good, except they didn't have gold paint back then. So I ended up trying out various combinations of yellow, brown and black acrylic paint, doing it in layers, and finally mixing them to try and get a convincing colour (far right). By the way, the colour values are very bad - the fabric is really a canary yellow and the paint colour is a sort of brownish greyish yellow. I hadn't wanted to do it this way, because it's so hard to get separate "batches" to match each other, and acrylic starts to dry the moment you expose it to air. But that turned out to work best, so I have to grit my teeth and do great long stints of fiddly painting until the current batch runs out and I can take a break (not wanting to waste my limited supplies of paint). So here's the fore topsail painted and the foresail and topgallant marked out for painting. Since I took this photo I have painted a little over half the pattern on foresail. More to come. Steven
  21. Louie da fly
    Couldn't agree more.
  22. Louie da fly
    I hope I didn't offend you, Dick. The furthest thing from my intention. I agree completely with your comments regarding the value of experimental archaeology. Unfortunately, kit manufacturers follow what they perceive the "market" to be - so there's plenty of Santa Marias, Revenges, Golden Hinds etc based on very little and even (such as in the case of all those square-sterned Santa Marias), in direct contradiction of the available evidence. This alone is a justification for a certain amount of well-earned grumpiness. OTOH, there's the occasional wild card - there was a beautiful kit on MSW awhile ago of a Liburnian from umpteen BC, based on contemporary representations, and sporting a stern rudder! Personally I'm not all that interested in building a model of a ship where all the information is handed to you on a platter. I would far rather exercise my mind investigating lesser-known ships and trying to work out hwat* form they really took and how they were made. I think at least half the fun in ship modelling is in the research and speculation, and the attempt to duplicate something where the information is far from complete, or interpret the available (often obscure) information to make something that actually works. And there are so many ships out there, particularly from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, that nobody has ever attempted. Like, I wouldn't mind having a go at this one, from Carpaccio's Legend of St Ursula. or perhaps one of these, a bas-relief (probably from the 12th century) on the leaning tower of Pisa Anyway, I'm following this build with great interest, to see how the theoretical idea turns out in the real world. Congratulations on your persistence and perspicacity, and other things beginning with per- Best wishes, Steven *(that was a typo, but is also the Old English version** of the word what, so I'm leaving it in place) **(actually it's hwaet, but what they hey . . .)
  23. Louie da fly
    Beautiful work, Dick. Particularly for a vessel that may never have existed!
  24. Louie da fly
    Looking good. You should start a build log for this. Do you have any photos of her at earlier stages of construction? Steven
  25. Louie da fly
    Good luck with the surgery, Bob. Good to see you've started a build log even if you have to wait a bit to start the build itself. I'll be following with interest (this period is one of my main passions). Steven

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